Was SJA sustainable?

[TommyR01D]

Mr TARDIS's recent review of Class (a series which I, along with most other people, never bothered to watch) briefly summarised the other Doctor Who spin-offs:

• K-9 and Company only got a pilot episode.
• K9 only got one series and it wasn't even part of the BBC.
• Torchwood wasn't picked up after Miracle Day.
• Class barely made an impression.

I noticed the The Sarah Jane Adventures is an exception. The series was generally well-liked and well-reviewed with no obvious sign of production trouble, and it only terminated rather abruptly because the lead actress died.

That got me thinking - Sladen would be 76 now. How long could her series have kept going before she decided to retire, the other actors wanted to move on, the writing got stale, the BBC made other decisions, there was some kind of backstage scandal, or any of the myriad other things that could have caused it to end?

 

[The Wormhole]

Honestly, even if Lis Sladen were still alive, I doubt SJA would have lasted much more than another season or so anyway.

 

[Relayer1]

They'd already introduced Katy Manning in the show - it could easily have gone in that direct with her becoming a regular.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I thought Torchwood S5 didn't go ahead because RTD's partner had just died or was in the process of dying?

I seem to recall reading that Starz wanted more.

 

[Starkers]

I think the difficulty you had with the SJA is that the kids were growing up (I mean they were already adults playing kids anyway). They could have kept Lis and brought new kids in, though there'd need to be a reason to do so. Alternatively if RTD had been able to bring Ace in as he'd wanted (I believe) who knows, the Sarah Jane Adventures could have morphed into the Ace Adventures with a new cast and maybe one or two carry overs from the SJA (inc. K9 and Mr Smith?)

The SJA is the best of the spinoffs, certainly the most consistently enjoyable. Am I right in thinking that Luke, Rani, Clyde etc haven't been featured by Big Finish?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Class barely made an impression.

It had one hell of a cliffhanger!

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The SJA is the best of the spinoffs, certainly the most consistently enjoyable. Am I right in thinking that Luke, Rani, Clyde etc haven't been featured by Big Finish?

Sadly not but Anji Mohindra has done a bunch of audios as different characters.

Edit: I was wrong. After doing several different audios, Mohindra did finally reprise Rani in the second set of The Eighth of March series in the story The Turn of the Tides, alongside Jo and Jac (from a couple of Capaldi episodes with UNIT). I didn't know about that one because it just came out a couple of months ago.

 

[TommyR01D]

I think the difficulty you had with the SJA is that the kids were growing up (I mean they were already adults playing kids anyway). They could have kept Lis and brought new kids in, though there'd need to be a reason to do so. Alternatively if RTD had been able to bring Ace in as he'd wanted (I believe) who knows, the Sarah Jane Adventures could have morphed into the Ace Adventures with a new cast and maybe one or two carry overs from the SJA (inc. K9 and Mr Smith?)

I recall that as soon as Jo appeared there was fan speculation about having her as a series regular, and in the immediate aftermath of Sladen's death the prospect was raised of her taking over, but the BBC quickly decided against it. Bringing Ace in would have been difficult as she'd never been on before, so going directly to having her as the lead would have felt a bit artificial.

On the point about adults playing kids, I think the characters were growing up at the same pace as the actors - Luke was at university and Rani was seen learning to drive. Nothing in the plot really requires those characters to be children, but I suppose all TV shows eventually get to the point where the characters can't plausibly be in the same situation anymore. Series 5 had introduced the much younger Sky as a new member of the team, effectively displacing Luke, so there was precedent for refreshing the cast (in the vein of M. I. High) but we can't predict whether a completely new group would maintain the chemistry of the original.

The real question, to me, is whether the tone of the series would have stayed the same despite the characters getting older, or if the writing would gradually be pushed in a more "gritty"/"edgy" direction and ending up more like Torchwood.

 

[Starkers]

It had one hell of a cliffhanger!

The cliffhanger, and the Miss Quill focused episode, were the highlights of the show.

The real question, to me, is whether the tone of the series would have stayed the same despite the characters getting older, or if the writing would gradually be pushed in a more "gritty"/"edgy" direction and ending up more like Torchwood.

Unlikely, maybe it might have ended up like the parent show, but not Torchwood.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The SJA is the best of the spinoffs, certainly the most consistently enjoyable. Am I right in thinking that Luke, Rani, Clyde etc haven't been featured by Big Finish?

Anjli is performing Rani in the ongoing podcast Doctor Who Redacted, but so far her role has been very, very small.

 

[diankra]

Honestly, even if Lis Sladen were still alive, I doubt SJA would have lasted much more than another season or so anyway.

Plan was for season six to be a bit of a reboot, allowing the teenagers to leave or do guest spots.

 

[The Wormhole]

I thought Torchwood S5 didn't go ahead because RTD's partner had just died or was in the process of dying?

I seem to recall reading that Starz wanted more.

While you are correct that RTD abruptly left the US and returned to Britain, thus ending his plans of becoming an American TV producer due to his partner's health problems, that was never a factor in Torchwood not getting a fifth season. Indeed, RTD never intended to be involved with a potential fifth season of Torchwood, intending Miracle Day to be sort of a "transition season" as he handed the reins over to an American showrunner who would take full control in a fifth season.

IIRC, it was due to Miracle Day's ratings that fifth season never happened.

 

[dupersuper]

Am I right in thinking that Luke, Rani, Clyde etc haven't been featured by Big Finish?

I don't know about Big Finish, but they had one of the Youtube lockdown videos to themselves.

 

[TommyR01D]

While you are correct that RTD abruptly left the US and returned to Britain, thus ending his plans of becoming an American TV producer due to his partner's health problems, that was never a factor in Torchwood not getting a fifth season. Indeed, RTD never intended to be involved with a potential fifth season of Torchwood, intending Miracle Day to be sort of a "transition season" as he handed the reins over to an American showrunner who would take full control in a fifth season.

IIRC, it was due to Miracle Day's ratings that fifth season never happened.

I had long thought it was at least partly down to a cliffhanger ending that none could be bothered to resolve.

 

[David cgc]

^Thinking about that actually reminded me of my favorite thing about "Miracle Day," which is that they added the TARDIS sound whene Jack (or, uh, that other guy) healed. Except they didn't think of doing it until the last episode.

Yes, that was my favorite thing. Crank up the volume if you can't hear the sound of that praise.

 

[TommyR01D]

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I'm not sure I can hear it. There's a sort of wind noise but it's not quite recognisable.
The more striking thing, having not watched Torchwood for some time, is that John Barrowman's voice is much higher than I remembered.

 

[Starkers]

There were two main problems with Miracle Day as far as I could see.

First was stretching it out to 10 episodes while 5 had worked perfectly for Children of Earth
Second was trying to recapture the shock of governments sacrificing 10% of the world's children. The incineration of those who should have died and who were clinging onto life was horrible, but it didn't reach the heights (lows?) of sacrificing perfectly heathy children.

A lesser issue was trying to marry a quirky British show with a glossy American one.

 

[The Wormhole]

Miracle Day is a lot like how I felt about the recent second season of Picard. Yeah, it was flawed, and I recognize all those flaws, but honestly, each week kept me entertained and satisfied, so while it may not have been prestige television, it didn't leave me with much to complain about either.

Though, Miracle Day's finale being 85% stand in front of the Giant Fucking Anus wasn't exactly a high point.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

There were two main problems with Miracle Day as far as I could see.

First was stretching it out to 10 episodes while 5 had worked perfectly for Children of Earth
Second was trying to recapture the shock of governments sacrificing 10% of the world's children. The incineration of those who should have died and who were clinging onto life was horrible, but it didn't reach the heights (lows?) of sacrificing perfectly heathy children.

A lesser issue was trying to marry a quirky British show with a glossy American one.

All of those are real problems but I think its greatest sin was wasting John de Lancie.

 

[Starkers]

All of those are real problems but I think its greatest sin was wasting John de Lancie.

Indeed, and kinda wasting Bill Pullman as well.